Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

venturebeat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 132 posts

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#121

Post by Ntrails »

colinbartlett wrote: post #110
suprgeek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- LinkedIn has employed "Dark Patterns" for a long time to scarf up your Address Book via your e-mail id. Then unless you are VERY careful you will end up spamming everyone with an invite. - They also employed a MTM attack on your mobile "Intro App" https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-... - Have you noticed that the LI News feed is a high-noise collection of crap? - and on and on "Monetizing y…

LinkedIn was the first in a long line of social networks I deleted starting 4 years ago. Not sure how anyone gets value out of enough to justify.

LinkedIn is not a social network. It's a site which holds my CV and then recruiters message me with Job Specs. I either like the spec or don't, and sometimes I get interviews from it.

I accept any friend request from recruiters/colleagues and beyond that never ever use the site.

My justification is I like getting job specs, and the cost is essentially nothing. Sure I hate that it's got a side panel asking me to connect with an old Wheel of Time fansite e-friend from Norway who was in my email contacts and I've not spoken to in some 15 years but it's hardly the end of the world.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#122

Post by luckystrike »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23

Are there any tools out there that can create something akin to a LinkedIn profile for static hosting? Something like Jekyll?

You can create a public resume on Resumonk. e.g. https://www.resumonk.com/aditya

Disclaimer: I'm the Co-Founder of Resumonk.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#123

Post by secfirstmd »

machz wrote: post #116
takee wrote: post #94

It's fairly easy to come up with a long list of shady practices that force me to not trust LinkedIn: 1. To start with, they sneaked in the request to access all your email contacts and constantly spam them in your name which can be embarrassing at times to say the least. 2. Their mobile apps do the same with your phone contacts, cleverly hiding the checkmark (in smallest font) to disallow the uploading of contacts. I…

It's so unfortunate that LinkedIn is successful in its domain despite its passively unethical ways. This company never gave me any positive vibes. It's always been recommendations that people begged from their co-workers and fluff talk about own profile. They are like the Ryanair of software industry. Least concern for the users. It's on my todo list to get rid of my minimal account info on LinkedIn as soon as possib…

Except Ryanair are actually getting much better at customer service these days, while still nearly always being the cheapest.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#124

Post by J_Darnley »

phil_s_stein wrote: post #87

Linked In spammed me once when they reached some sort of milestone. The email had no remove-me-from-this-list link or way to tell Linked In that I didn't want to receive emails. I found the CEO's email address and forwarded it to him, asking him to remove me from the mailing list. He sent back a nasty email and deleted my account. I've not looked back and my life is exactly as it was, minus a few unwanted emails.

I should try that with the repeated "sign up" requests I get.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#125

Post by davidgerard »

phil_s_stein wrote: post #87

Linked In spammed me once when they reached some sort of milestone. The email had no remove-me-from-this-list link or way to tell Linked In that I didn't want to receive emails. I found the CEO's email address and forwarded it to him, asking him to remove me from the mailing list. He sent back a nasty email and deleted my account. I've not looked back and my life is exactly as it was, minus a few unwanted emails.

Please put up a copy of your letter, the semi-mythical "way to get off LinkedIn's mailing list"!

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#126

Post by saturdaysaint »

wernercd wrote: post #89
lemevi wrote: post #9

LinkedIn has never been interesting to me for anything other than looking at what past coworkers have been up to. I've never once had an experience where LinkedIn led to a job and in fact after I deleted my account my recruiter email volume dropped by an order of magnitude. I've also read that potential employers search candidates LinkedIn contacts to see if there are any existing employees and if so ask them about t…

My 2c: My previous company was circling the drain (lost main customer, slowly downsized from max of ~25 to me being #5 when I left.) My job hunting was basically updating my profile on LI and light searching. Contacted by a Recruiter. They updated my resume to look more professional. Working as a contractor-to-hire at a state IT position. There is a lot of spam, and I have no interest in the "facebook lite" feel of t…

Same here - a light LI update and recruiters are all over me. Alternatively, one month of subscribing to LinkedIn Premium (or whatever) got me some great leads at good companies - it was very easy to target the right level of higher-ups - but I had a good gig by the time I got the ball rolling with them. So I can agree with the complaints but in another sense it's one of those technologies that's like having a superpower compared to the old days of job hunting when I graduated from college in 2003.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#127

Post by corin_ »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #85
bduerst wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the value that LinkedIn adds is that there is some degree of authenticity to the resumes. There are some API standards for background checks between businesses and agencies, so that could be a good place to start. You could offer authenticated profiles, where people can't lie on their resume about where they worked. Of course, LI could just implement this if you became too competitive to them.

> Part of the value that LinkedIn adds is that there is some degree of authenticity to the resumes. Can you explain this? I can add any company and whatever job title and list of responsibilities I want without any verification.

It's not perfect but it makes it possible to spot lies. For example if you manage your company's profile on LinkedIn you can see when a new person says they've started working for you, and you can click a "they don't really work here" button. Of course people can still claim to work for "Y C0mbinator", but then on their profile it won't click through to the same company as listed on other people's profiles.

It also let's you make better judgements on likelihood they're lying. It's not impossible to create an authentic-looking fake profile, but generally speaking if you see someone claiming to work for X company and connected to lots of employees from X company it's a safe bet that they worked there.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#128

Post by Spooky23 »

afarrell wrote: post #101
Spooky23 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever dealt with a recruiter? Scum that spam people are like real estate agents sponsoring the PTA meeting -- they are trolling for listings.

This is a fairly low bar for calling another human scum

Thanks to people like this who pass out resumes without authorization and shop candidates, I lost out on a key job opportunity at a time where I was in a pretty bad personal situation, and the job market was not so great.

So maybe I'm mean, but I have no respect whatsoever for contingency recruiters.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#129

Post by JimmaDaRustla »

suprgeek wrote: post #98
takee wrote: post #94

It's fairly easy to come up with a long list of shady practices that force me to not trust LinkedIn: 1. To start with, they sneaked in the request to access all your email contacts and constantly spam them in your name which can be embarrassing at times to say the least. 2. Their mobile apps do the same with your phone contacts, cleverly hiding the checkmark (in smallest font) to disallow the uploading of contacts. I…

- LinkedIn has employed "Dark Patterns" for a long time to scarf up your Address Book via your e-mail id. Then unless you are VERY careful you will end up spamming everyone with an invite. - They also employed a MTM attack on your mobile "Intro App" https://threatpost.com/linkedin-intro-app-equivalent-to-man-... - Have you noticed that the LI News feed is a high-noise collection of crap? - and on and on "Monetizing y…

It's funny you say "monetizing users". Immediately after reading that, I opened up linked in and I had a message in my inbox from IBM providing me a free trial to some software and it had a little "sponsored" tag on the inbox item.

Dear god this site is wretched.

Re: LinkedIn quietly removes option to export contacts

#130

Post by toomuchtodo »

corin_ wrote: post #127
toomuchtodo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the value that LinkedIn adds is that there is some degree of authenticity to the resumes. Can you explain this? I can add any company and whatever job title and list of responsibilities I want without any verification.

It's not perfect but it makes it possible to spot lies. For example if you manage your company's profile on LinkedIn you can see when a new person says they've started working for you, and you can click a "they don't really work here" button. Of course people can still claim to work for "Y C0mbinator", but then on their profile it won't click through to the same company as listed on other people's profiles. It also l…

I agree this works for smaller companies, but for larger companies (>=500 employees), no verification is likely to take place.
Post reply on HN